RT Journal Article
T1 Udder health in organic dairy cattle in Northern Spain
A1 Villar, Ana
A1 López Alonso, María Marta
K1 Somatic cell count
K1 Mastitis
K1 Homeopathic treatments
AB This paper presents first data on the udder health status of organic dairy farms in Northern Spain and analyses some managementand productive characteristics related to milk production comparing with the conventional sector. Five certified organic farms fromthe Cantabrian Region were monitored monthly from February 2006 to January 2008 and individual samples of all lactating cowswere taken from parturition to the end of lactation. Although organic farms in our study showed a great individual variability, overall these were small (<50 lactating cows) traditional farms, with a high degree of pasture (66-82% dry matter intake) and a milkproduction (average milk yield: 5950 L) 23% lower compared with the reference conventional sector (<50 cow farms). The organic farms had higher (p<0.05) average number of calves per cow (3.93) and a lower number of first-lactation cows (16.9%) thanthe comparable conventional farms (2.47 calves per cow and 33.1% first-lactation cows). Organic farms showed higher (p<0.05)somatic cell counts (SCC) than the reference conventional farms (mean log10±SD for all cows: 5.25±0.49 and 5.06±0.59, respectively). Detailed analysis of the SCC depending on the number of lactation and % of monthly SCC tests with linear scores indicativeof udder infection suggest that while the heifers’ sanitary condition at the beginning of their productive cycle was similar in bothtypes of farms, this seems to become worse along the productive cycle in the organics. This could be related to a low use of antibiotics for prophylaxis and treatment of udder infections and merits further investigation
PB Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA)
SN 1695-971X
YR 2015
FD 2015
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/22557
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/22557
LA eng
NO Villar, A.; López-Alonso, M. (2015). Udder health in organic dairy cattle in Northern Spain. Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research, Volume 13, Issue 3, e0503, 8 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.5424/sjar/2015133-6610
NO INIA (ref. RTA2006-00132-C02-01)
DS Minerva
RD 27 abr 2026